ipo DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



that the collector of specimens has caused or has hastened 

 the extermination of several members of the old fauna. 



Upon the head of the entomologist lies the guilt of the 

 extermination of the English "Large Copper" Butterfly 

 (Chrysophanus dispar), whose head-quarters were in the 

 Whittlesea Meer of Huntingdonshire. There persistent 

 collecting of the caterpillars by persons young and old, 

 abetted by an unusual flood, exterminated about 1850 a 

 creature so abundant twenty years before that visitors who 

 had seen it never dreamed of its extinction. 



The methods and occasional intensity of the entomolo- 

 gist's pursuit are well illustrated in the case of the Artaxerxes 

 Butterfly (now regarded as the variety artaxerxes of Polyom- 

 matus agrestis], which was first discovered and described 

 from Arthur's Seat near Edinburgh for long the only known 

 locality. Here the Artaxerxes (Fig. 44) was so common that 

 collectors flocked from all parts to plenish their collections, 

 with the result that in 1844 it was said that "all the English 

 cabinets and the principal foreign ones, are now abundantly 

 supplied from that locality." But collecting did not stop when 

 moderate demands had been met. Still collectors flocked to 

 the crags above Duddingston Loch, as Mr William Evans 

 has informed me, from the season's beginning to the season's 

 end, not only capturing the butterfly on the wing, but 

 collecting pupae and- caterpillars for subsequent develop- 

 ment, and even plucking those leaves of the Rock Rose 

 on which the eggs had been laid, towards the same end 

 of stocking the collections of Europe and of the world with 

 Artaxerxes when the imago appeared. The result of such 

 persistence could have been in no doubt in the case of so 

 local a form. The last specimen was found in 1868 Arta- 

 xerxes was exterminated from its world-renowned home on 

 Arthur's Seat. It was not due to the foresight of collectors 

 that other localities in Scotland have since been discovered 

 which carry on the tradition of the existence of the Artaxerxes 

 Butterfly. 



Birds have suffered even more than Butterflies. The 

 St Kilda Wren (Troglodytes hirtensis) was so persecuted 

 after the discovery of the unique character of this inhabitant 

 of the lonely island, that in a most destructive raid in the 

 spring of 1903 it was believed, according to Sir Herbert 



